Bowood 2014 #19

Went up to Bowood late in the afternoon for a daily constitutional and wandered down to the lake. I asked at Admissions if there was any news on my missing lens cap but it hadn't turned up. It will cost around £35 to replace.

There is usually something new to see in the grounds and there were a couple of finds on this walk. There were a number of orchids in flower in Lake Field, and this great crested grebe was very close to me, but stayed cautiously behind the reeds and iris leaves so that this was the clearest shot that I got. The oddly-plumaged goose that had sparked all the interest the previous week was back, on the lake again with a group of Canada geese. There are various sub-species of Canada goose and some of the ones on the lake appeared to be lesser Canada geese, smaller with much shorter necks. It seems most likely that the one with the white head on the right in this picture is a Canada goose/Barnacle goose hybrid.

There was another bird I couldn't identify in the distance, beyond the stretch of lake I had access to, that had some of the colouring of a grebe but a different bill, so I took a long-distance shot of it to blow up and study when I got home. It turned out to be a female goosander, I think the first I had ever seen. They are winter visitors in this part of the world, and the books say they only breed in Scotland and the north, but I'm told they also breed in South Wales, and though I later learned they are known to overwinter on Bowood Lake, its presence in Wiltshire at this time of year appears to be previously unrecorded.

I took a picture of Bowood House as I walked back, and it got picked for Explore on the Flickr site, getting thousands of views.

L.
15.6.2014 (0950 hr)

Blip #1291
Consecutive Blip #153
Day #1530

Lenses: Pentax 17-70 mm, Pentax 55-300 mm x1.4 converter

Bowood 2014 series
Bowood series
Bowood 2013-2014 (Flickr collection)(Work in progress)

Lozarhythm Of The Day:
Mark Knopfler & Emmylou Harris - Red Staggerwing (recorded 1998)
Red Staggerwing was written by former Dire Straits member Mark Knopfler, and was recorded by him and Emmylou Harris in Nashville for an album in 1998, but was held over as he decided to compile a whole album of duets. It took seven years for this project to complete and so this did not appear until the album All The Roadrunning in 2006.

One year ago: The Snail